Hospital Workers Get Partial Win On Health Benefits

Union workers at Michael Reese Hospital accepted a contract Wednesday that blunts temporarily a try by the nation's largest hospital chain to deny health benefits to part-time workers.

The negotiations had been watched closely by other hospitals and by unions, who see the issue as crucial in an increasingly competitive health-care environment.

The contract, negotiated over five months, allows the Chicago hospital's current part-time workers to continue to receive health-care and other benefits on a pro-rated basis, based on the number of hours worked, but it denies such benefits to future part-timers.

A hospital spokeswoman called the agreement a "win-win" situation, but people in the industry predicted more battles over the issue at other hospitals.

Reese's owner, Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp., owns or has contracted to buy nine Chicago-area hospitals and said it intends to enlarge its network in the area to as many as 20.

In the past, it was taken for granted that part-timers at hospitals in the Chicago area would receive health-care and other benefits, said Pia Davis, vice president of General Service Employees Union Local 73 of the Service Employees International Union, which negotiated the agreement.

"This was the first (employer) that we had encountered where they just wanted to eliminate all benefits for part-time employees," she said.

Fewer than 100 of the 900 workers the union represents at Michael Reese are part-timers, she said.

The contract also provides that current full-time workers who are forced to become part-timers will keep their benefits.

At Chicago's Grant Hospital, which Columbia/HCA acquired last year, workers have been without a contract since 1993. Its part-timers receive health-care and other benefits, and "if Columbia tried to take them away, that would certainly become an issue in the negotiations," said Philip John, business agent for Teamsters Local 743, which represents some of the hospital's workers.

John said he is preparing to invite Grant and Columbia/HCA to open negotiations on a new contract.

"The (hospital) companies generally believe that if they don't have to pay benefits, particularly health-care benefits, they are able to reap better profits by lessening the cost of labor," John said.